Attention Saint Patrick Read online

"she'll tell her grandfather,and he'll collar somebody and use those gimlet eyes on him and the poor_omadhoum_ will blurt out that on Eire here it's known that St. Patrickbrought the snakes and is the more reverenced for it. And that'll meanthere'll be no more ships or food or tools from Earth, and it'll belucky if we're evacuated before the planet's left abandoned."

  The solicitor general's expression became one of pure hopelessness.

  "Then the jig's up," he said gloomily. "I'm thinkin', Mr. President,we'd better have a cabinet meeting on it."

  "What's the use," demanded the president. "I won't leave! I'll stayhere, alone though I may be. There's nothing left in life for meanywhere, but at least, as the only human left on Eire I'll be able tospend the rest of my years knockin' dinies on the head for what they'vedone!" Then, suddenly, he bellowed. "Who let loose the snakes! I'llhave his heart's blood----"

  * * * * *

  The Chancellor of the Exchequer peered around the edge of the door intothe cabinet meeting room. He saw the rest of the cabinet of Eireassembled. Relieved, he entered. Something stirred in his pocket and hepulled out a reproachful snake. He said:

  "Don't be indignant, now! You were walkin' on the public street. IfSean O'Donohue had seen you----" He added to the other members of thecabinet: "The other two members of the Dail Committee seem to be good,honest, drinkin' men. One of them now--the shipbuilder I think itwas--wanted a change of scenery from lookin' at the bottom of a glass.I took him for a walk. I showed him a bunch of dinies playin' leapfrogtryin' to get one of their number up to a rain spout so he could biteoff pieces and drop 'em down to the rest. They were all colors and itwas quite somethin' to look at. The committeeman--good man that heis!--staggered a bit and looked again and said grave that whatever ofevil might be said of Eire, nobody could deny that its whisky hadimagination!"

  He looked about the cabinet room. There was a hole in the baseboardunderneath the sculptured coat of arms of the colony world. He put thesnake down on the floor beside the hole. With an air of offendeddignity, the snake slithered into the dark opening.

  "Now--what's the meeting for?" he demanded. "I'll tell you immediatethat if money's required it's impractical."

  President O'Hanrahan said morbidly:

  "'Twas called, it seems, to put the curse o' Cromwell on whoever letthe black snakes loose. But they'd been cooped up, and they knew theywere not keepin' the dinies down, and they got worried over the workthey were neglectin'. So they took turns diggin', like prisoners in apenitentiary, and presently they broke out and like the faithfulcreatures they are they set anxious to work on their backlog ofdiny-catchin'. Which they're doin'. They've ruined us entirely, butthey meant well."

  The minister of Information asked apprehensively: "What will O'Donohuedo when he finds out they're here?"

  "He's not found out--yet," said the president without elation. "Moiradidn't tell him. She's an angel! But he's bound to learn. And then ifhe doesn't detonate with the rage in him, he'll see to it that all ofus are murdered--slowly, for treason to the Erse and blasphemy directedat St. Patrick." Then the president said with a sort of yearning pride:"D'ye know what Moira offered to do? She said she'd taken biology atcollege, and she'd try to solve the problem of the dinies. Thedarlin'!"

  "Bein' gathered together," observed the chief justice, "we might aswell try again to think of somethin' plausible."

  "We need a good shenanigan," agreed the president unhappily. "But whatcould it be? Has anybody the trace of an idea?"

  The cabinet went into session. The trouble was, of course, that theErse colony on Eire was a bust. The first colonists built houses, brokeground, planted crops--and encountered dinies. Large ones, fifty andsixty feet long, with growing families. They had thick bodies withunlikely bony excrescences, they had long necks which ended in veryimprobable small heads, and they had long tapering tails which wouldknock over a man or a fence post or the corner of a house, impartially,if they happened to swing that way. They were not bright.

  That they ate the growing crops might be expected, though cursed. Butthey ate wire fences. The colonists at first waited for them to die ofindigestion. But they digested the fences. Then between bales of morenormal foodstuffs they browsed on the corrugated-iron roofs of houses.Again the colonists vengefully expected dyspepsia. They digested theroofs, too. Presently the lumbering creatures nibbled at axes--theheads, not the handles. They went on to the plows. When they gatheredsluggishly about a ground-car and began to lunch on it, the colonistsdid not believe. But it was true.

  The dinies' teeth weren't mere calcium phosphate, like other beasts. Anamateur chemist found out that they were an organically deposited boroncarbide, which is harder than any other substance but crystallizedcarbon--diamond. In fact, diny teeth, being organic, seemed to be anespecially hard form of boron carbide. Dinies could chew iron. Theycould masticate steel. They could grind up and swallow anything buttool-steel reinforced with diamond chips. The same amateur chemistworked it out that the surface soil of the planet Eire was deficient iniron and ferrous compounds. The dinies needed iron. They got it.

  * * * * *

  The big dinies were routed by burning torches in the hands of angrycolonists. When scorched often enough, their feeble brains gathered theidea that they were unwelcome. They went lumbering away.

  They were replaced by lesser dinies, approximately the size ofkangaroos. They also ate crops. They also hungered for iron. To themsteel cables were the equivalent of celery, and they ate iron pipe asif it were spaghetti. The industrial installations of the colony weretheir special targets. The colonists unlimbered guns. They shot thedinies. Ultimately they seemed to thin out. But once a month wasshoot-a-diny day on Eire, and the populace turned out to clear theenvirons of their city of Tara.

  Then came the little dinies. Some were as small as two inches inlength. Some were larger. All were cute. Colonists' children wanted tomake pets of them until it was discovered that miniature they might be,but harmless they were not. Tiny diny-teeth, smaller than the heads ofpins, were still authentic boron carbide. Dinies kept as pets cheerilygnawed away wood and got at the nails of which their boxes were made.They ate the nails.

  Then, being free, they extended their activities. They and theirfriends tunneled busily through the colonists' houses. They ate nails.They ate screws. They ate bolts, nuts, the nails out of shoes, pocketknives and pants buttons, zippers, wire staples and the tacks out ofupholstery. Gnawing even threads and filings of metal away, they madevisible gaps in the frames and moving parts of farm tractors.

  Moreover, it appeared that their numbers previously had been held downby the paucity of ferrous compounds in their regular diet. The lack ledto a low birth rate. Now, supplied with great quantities of iron bytheir unremitting industry, they were moved to prodigies ofmultiplication.

  The chairman of the Dail Committee on the Condition of the Planet Eirehad spoken of them scornfully as equal to mice. They were much worse.The planetary government needed at least a pied piper or two, but ittried other measures. It imported cats. Descendants of the felines ofEarth still survived, but one had only to look at their frustrated,neurotic expressions to know that they were failures. The governmentset traps. The dinies ate their springs and metal parts. It offeredbounties for dead dinies. But the supply of dinies was inexhaustible,and the supply of money was not. It had to be stopped.

  Then upon the spaceport of Eire a certain Captain Patrick Brannicut, ofBoston, Earth, descended. It was his second visit to Eire. On the firsthe'd learned of the trouble. On his second he brought what still seemedthe most probable solution. He landed eighteen hundred adult blacksnakes, two thousand teen-agers of the same species, and two crates ofsoft-shelled eggs he guaranteed to hatch into fauna of the same kind.He took away all the cash on the planet. The government was desperate.

  But the snakes chased dinies with enthusiasm. They pounced upondinies while the public watched. They lay in wait for dinies, the
ypublicly digested dinies, and they went pouring down into any smallhole in the ground from which a diny had appeared or into which onevanished. They were superior to traps. They did not have to be set oremptied. They did not need bait. They were self-maintaining and evenself-reproducing--except that snakes when overfed tend to be lessromantic than when hungry. In ten years a story began--encouraged bythe Ministry of Information--to the effect that St. Patrick hadbrought the snakes to Eire, and it was certain that if they didn'twipe out the dinies, they assuredly kept the dinies from wiping outthe colony. And the one hope of